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Brown Rabbit Soup

A hearty soup made from rabbit, onions, carrots, and spices, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Brown Rabbit Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Brown the rabbit

  1. Dip the rabbit pieces in flour and fry in butter until browned.

  2. Place the browned rabbit in a soup kettle.

  3. Add the fried onions and pour in 3 quarts of boiling water.

Simmer

  1. Add salt and skim frequently until the soup is clear.

  2. Add parsley, carrots, and whole peppercorns.

  3. Boil gently for about 6 hours.

  4. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup and let it cool, then skim off the fat.

  2. Reheat the soup before serving and add croutons.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat and body of the soup as it simmers for hours.
Flour
Coats the rabbit so it browns well and slightly thickens the soup.
Butter
Carries the heat for frying and adds browning and richness to the rabbit.
Onions
Fried brown first, they add deep color and savory sweetness to the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Skim frequently while the soup simmers. Fat and coagulated proteins rise to the surface during simmering and cloud the broth if left in. Skimming them keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, flour, butter, parsley, carrot):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, flour, butter, parsley, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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